Two
Les Paul Customs, three cabinets, 12
pedals, 13 microphones and a bicycle. When
Russian Circles opened their U-haul truck outside of a California hotel in 2021, they found that all these things and more had been stolen from them overnight. As if that weren’t calamitous enough, they were about to start the biggest tour of their lives, supporting
System of a Down and
Korn in stadiums, and were 2,100 miles away from their then-base of Chicago. The only thing that could have been worse was if someone had died.

Photos by Maarten van Helden